


pictures in the cave

by s0ulconnection



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M, Selkies, i am so conflicted, idk if angst or smut, what is folklore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 12:14:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s0ulconnection/pseuds/s0ulconnection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>aomine, enamoured by childhood folktales, meets a selkie one night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pictures in the cave

pictures in the cave 1/?

s0ulconnection | kuroko no basuke | aomine daiki/kagami taiga

 

 

 

"As soon as the seal was clear of the water, it reared up and its skin slipped down to the sand. What had been a seal was a white-skinned boy."

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

When one lives with the sea, one begins to uncover its mysteries.

 

There is no agreement on how often the selkie-folk can transform from seals to human – some say it was once a year – or whenever there was a full moon – whenever one weeps seven tears into the swift seas.

 

It was once a common sight to see the selkies bobbing above the waves of Orkney. Aomine’s grandfather would tell him tales of their eerily humane eyes nodding above the restless waves. He would talk about the beautiful women that came from the sea, shedding their sealskin and walking onto land under the pale moonlight – their skin wet and gleaming, round globes of females’ breasts softly swaying as they hid their sealskin, the males with muscles flexing as they walked with a strange energy. The selkie-folk were dangerous, his granddad would say with a wistful gleam in his eye. They were silently powerful and indescribably graceful, with no qualms about shedding off their soft skin and walking among land dwellers. However, if anyone took a selkie’s skin, the selkie cannot return to sea until the sealskin was returned. There are so many stories surrounding the thefts of a maiden’s skin, and the maiden would be forced to marry her captor.

 

The females were fine wives, with faces that no mortal can compare to and voices that could bring a man to his knees. Every time Aomine asked his grandfather to retell the tale of Goodman of Wastness, he would pause and close his eyes – as if in exhaustion – as if in pain. Then Aomine would hesitantly shift and his wooden stool creak, and his grandfather would carry on, speaking of the man who sinned in the name of love.

 

 

For all the folklore surrounding Orkney, Aomine never saw a selkie.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Orkney summers were cool and winters mild. It was always windy and wet –temperate because of the Gulf Stream. Orkney was famous for its winds. Winds incomparable in frequency and violence, whipping up sea foam and spraying minute particles of salt into the breeze.

 

Aomine’s dark hair was never tidy.

 

 

 

-

 

 

Aomine was always restless whenever he went to visit his grandfather. It was probably because Orkney was a sleepy island wrapped under thick fogs and whipped with resilient gales.

 

Summers were rewarded with almost unending sunlight. There is no true darkness – the sun never sets. It remains just below the horizon, bathing the sky in blood and fading beams of molten gold.

 

Winters nights were long – the sun awakes groggily and soon falls into slumber mid-afternoon. The winter nights were cold and chilly, yet Aomine always lounged on the deck outside, a habit he acquired from the summer nights chatting with his grandfather before his death.

 

This time he came to attend to his grandfather’s funeral.

 

This might be the last time he went to Orkney, because there was nothing keeping him there.

 

 

-

 

 

The funeral was small with no pomp or ceremony – just Aomine and a bagpiper who played with chilling hollowness – whom he paid with his meagre salary out of respect to his grandfather’s attachment to the Scottish tradition. Aomine carried the coffin out to sea, the piper playing along the way. The wind lashed his hair around his eyes, as if trying to snatch the briny tears – as if there wasn’t enough salt in the air.

 

They soon reached the sea, waves lapping at the tips of his shoes and withdrawing almost shyly.

 

Aomine slowly pushed the coffin out to sea, leaving carnations, chrysanthemums, gladioli and lilies bound crudely with rope on the coffin – so that the strong gusts will not blow them away.

 

He strained his eyes as the coffin slowly sank, the unsightly blob of colour in the grey skyline disappearing under the waves.

 

He gave some dram and oatmeal biscuits out of tradition to the piper and bid him farewell.

 

 

-

 

 

That night, Aomine, wrapped up in the hugest blanket he could find, stayed awake under the sky. The full moon was surprisingly unshielded by clouds. The huge house that was now his felt forlorn – almost foreign – and Aomine had no interest in dredging up the only childhood memories that made him smile without restraint.

 

He stared at the sky, the shadows on the moon shifting and splaying over the rough surface.

 

Just when he started to close his eyes, there was something white coming from the water – something pale and lustrous, contrasting strongly against the dark backdrop that was the sea.

 

Aomine slowly threw off the blanket, quietly so as not to startle the figure. As he got closer, he could see that it was a man standing on the shore –well built and without a stitch covering his genitals.

 

His profile was exquisitely defined – nose gradually sloping to a soft mouth, broad shoulders and strong arms curving along the spine of to firm and round buttocks. He was generously endowed; cock buried under a bush of pubic hair – gently swaying along to his silent footsteps and slapping his inner thighs. He was dripping wet, yet very arousing. Even under the dim lighting, Aomine could see that he was proportionally built – not lean, not overly muscular.

 

The man stilled and bent down and before Aomine had time to react, splashed into the water.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Aomine ran over to where he was standing, heart racing as he remembered tales from his childhood. His bare feet slapping the sandy shore as he relieved his grandfather’s words – could he be a selkie – could he be a selkie – they shed their skin – the skin –

 

He saw something dark on the ground – he could feel blood pounding into his ears – it was indeed a sealskin.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i first read this in a beautifully illustrated book about scottish folklore when i was a kid, which left the deepest impression on me to this day, so i picked this as a setting when requested to write smut
> 
> fuck i did quite a lot of research on the selkie-folk and climate and traditions in orkney and scotland as a whole. but since i haven't read any homosexual selkie tales i took quite a lot of artistic licence with the gay gay aomine/kagami oops
> 
> disclaimer: i am not scottish, nor have i ever been to scotland so i'm sorry if anything i wrote here is completely shit


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